An extension of Sports Business News, the largest online sports business news service -- featuring the comments and insights of SBN Publisher Howard Bloom

Thursday, December 06, 2012

Picking up the pieces and moving forward – The Kansas Chiefs

The Kansas City Chiefs
played a football game last Sunday at Arrowhead Stadium. Twenty-four
hours Jovan Belcher blew his brains all over the stadium’s parking lot,
after murdering 22-year-old Kasandra Perkins, the Chiefs won their
second game of the 2012 National Football League season beating the
Carolina Panthers 27-21. Life continues to move forward for the Chiefs
when the team travels to Cleveland to meet the Browns Sunday. In a
season that has been a failure both on and off the field for the Chiefs,
there is no game plan for what has happened to the Chiefs in the last
seven days.

Bill Polian, now an ESPN analyst, was the Indianapolis Colts general
manager seven years ago when Coach Tony Dungy’s son James committed
suicide seven years ago. While far from being similar, Polian looked
back on how the Colts dealt with an in-season series of tragic events.

“The task going forward is to try and help the players and staff deal
with the enormity of what’s happened, and it’s much more difficult
because it’s much more enormous than the loss of one life,” Polian told
the New York Times.

“In looking back, I don’t remember a thing that was written or said
about it,” Polian said of James Dungy’s death. “Your focus turns inward.
There is absolutely no question it takes a while to get past and
everything that happens in the N.F.L. is public. But I think the thing
readers need to know is that football teams are not 9-to-5 jobs. They’re
much more like military organizations. They live together essentially
for eight months a year. They form bonds and allegiances and
relationships that are very different from the workaday world and so
when these things develop, they rely on those that are close to them. So
it really doesn’t matter what outsiders think or do or say.”

What took place last Saturday will forever be etched in the mind,
soul and conciseness of Chiefs coach Romeo Crennel. Belcher arrived in
the stadium parking lot Saturday morning moments after murdering
Kasandra Perkins, Belcher met Chiefs general manger Scott Pioli. Pioli
called Crennel and Chiefs defensive coordinator Gary Gibbs after Belcher
had asked for Crennel and Gibbs.

“I was trying to get him to understand that life is not over, he
still has a chance, and let’s get this worked out,” Crennel said Monday,
adding that he did not know of any personal issues that Belcher might
have had at the time of Belcher’s suicide.

"I didn't know what happened," Crennel said. "All I know is it was a
player with a gun and I know that is not a good thing. I've never seen
him with a gun, never, ever."

If there is no playbook that can help a coach deal with the aftermath
of the Chiefs week, how is Crennel personally dealing with the tragedy?

"My daughters and my wife, they tell me I must be crazy, that
something must be wrong with me, but I can deal with stress. I can deal
with grief," Crennel said. "So I was dealing with it by trying to be the
leader that those young men upstairs need."

Crennel, Pioli and Gibbs, will receive mandatory counseling provided by the NFL, according to NFL's vice president of player engagement Troy Vincent.

"We're always going to say 'I'm OK, I'm good.' ... No, we're not
good," Vincent said. "Witnessing that kind of event is horrific. It's
not about closing the door, not about being the gladiator, the tough,
immortal football player that we've always developed into being. This is
serious. This is a mental, visual image that we need to talk through,
and this is OK."

As tough as the last week has been for the Chiefs, there are those
who have questioned whether or not the National Football League should
have played the game in Kansas City. The NFL gave the Chiefs until late
Saturday evening if the game would be played. The players believed they
were doing what they are paid to do as professional football players –
play the game.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell hasn’t said very much about what took
place last Saturday, did offer this comment to Time Magazine.

”My first thoughts weren’t about football at all,” Goodell told TIME
in his first public comments since the shocking incident. “This is not a
football tragedy. It’s a human tragedy that impacts families, loved
ones and an innocent child left behind.”

Would the Chiefs play their game against the Carolina Panthers the
next day? “It was ultimately my decision,” he says. “But it was
important to get the views of the players and honor their wishes.
[Chiefs chairman] Clark [Hunt] got back to me and said [Coach] Romeo
[Crennel] and the captains felt that playing the game–being together as a
team and a community — was important. So that’s exactly what we did.”

Belcher, 25, became the fourth current or former NFL player to commit
suicide since April. The others were Junior Seau, best known for his
years with the San Diego Chargers; O.J. Murdock of the Tennessee Titans
(at the time of his death like Belcher a current NFL player); and the
long-retired Ray Easterling of the Atlanta Falcons. Easterling’s and
Seau’s deaths have been widely blamed on dementia resulting from
football-related concussions.

There are no suggestions Belcher’s suicide had anything do with head
trauma, concessions or the use of any performance enhancement drugs.
Belcher was in his fourth year with the Chiefs. His 2012 contract
(guaranteed after the team’s first game of the season) paid Belcher
$1.92 million. The average NFL career lasts between three and four
football seasons. Belcher wasn’t drafted when he graduated from the
University of Maine after their 2008 season; Jovan Belcher was nearing
the end of his National Football League career.

Belcher enjoyed the all too short NFL players’ experience. Belcher
lived the life college football players enjoy. Belcher may have played
one or more National Football League seasons, the life, the lifestyle
Jovan Belcher had been living was coming to an end. Tragically Belcher’s
life ended last Saturday, along with Kasandra Perkins the woman he
murdered.

About Me

The evolution of Howard Bloom’s career took a dramatic change in the spring of 1997, when Howard began publishing SportsBusinessNews.com. In its fifteen years, SBN has evolved into the largest and one of the most influential sports industry publications.